Madam Speaker, there has been so much rhetoric flying around all day on this issue over and above the incoherent rantings that we just heard from the previous speaker. So much of it simply is not true.
Liberal members are speaking out of so many corners of their mouths that I do not know how anybody could ever figure out what the Liberal position actually is. Everybody understands when the NDP raves about the immorality of profits in the petroleum industry. That is socialism and we can understand that but the Liberals have been all over the map on this issue and continue to be.
The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge has flipped so many times he must feel like a burned pancake on the way to the breakfast table. The motion we brought forward to vote on comes directly out of his task force on gasoline pricing. He is trying to change the content of the motion so he will somehow be able to support it. He has managed to change it instead of simply supporting the context that he recommended to his government and with which it has done nothing for a year and a half. That makes no sense at all.
Everybody is blaming this whole issue on the evil oil cartel and the big oil companies that are gouging the consumer and all the rest of the things we have just heard. The previous member talked about doing research in his office and finding evil people hiding in places and ripping us off.
Looking back at the history of crude oil prices, in 1991 as a result of the gulf war crisis crude oil prices spiked to a record $41 a barrel. At that time the pre-tax cost of a litre of gasoline was only 42 cents when crude oil hit $41 a barrel. Today in 2000 with crude oil hitting $37 plus a barrel, gasoline prices have gone through the roof but the pre-tax price of gasoline is only 44 cents a litre.
No one can tell me that the gouging that is going on is by the oil companies. The pre-tax price of oil indicates that it is not the oil companies. It is the provincial and federal governments and their taxes that are gouging the Canadian people on this issue. There is no question about it. The information is there. The facts are there. A good part of the problem—